More agility through digitalization

When people talk about the impact of digitalization on the labour market, it is often limited to two aspects: Employers see the potential to minimize costs, employees see the risk of losing their jobs. However, studies show that both sides can benefit from digital development – if companies move with the times and focus on continuous development.

A few years ago, the Institute for Employment Research published a short report examining how digitalization is influencing the labour market. The result: the substitutability potential of activities in the occupations examined increased significantly between 2013 and 2016. After all, numerous digital applications have been further developed that make it possible to have even more work steps carried out by machines – at least in theory. This is because employment has only declined slightly over the same period. Just because there is the potential to have some activities carried out by machines instead of employees does not mean that it will be done. For ethical or legal reasons, for example, or because there are enough individual cases in which spontaneous and intuitive decisions have to be made that no machine can currently do. And, of course, because in many cases human work is (still) of a higher quality than the machine counterpart would be.

So how should we deal with digitalization in the labour market? First of all, we should not see it as a sword of Damocles hanging ominously over jobs and industries. Instead, we need to see digitalization as the opportunity that it is and use it where it helps us. Existing job profiles and sectors will not necessarily disappear as a result, but they will need to be continuously adapted. It is not the labor market around us that is changing while we passively stand in the middle – we are the labor market and we are responsible for the very changes that drive the market forward. To do this, you have to open your mind and think bigger: teaching employees mindless tasks that a machine can also do? Humbug! For employers and, incidentally, for employees too. It’s much more important to promote skills such as independence and teamwork, self-management and a willingness to cooperate – as well as interdisciplinary, specialist knowledge that can be used and applied flexibly. After all, these are precisely the skills that the economy needs in the 21st century. Incidentally, this is also exactly what my team at Conzima has been implementing in its day-to-day work for several years now and recommending to companies in order to survive in the long term: Agility.

In terms of digitalization in the workplace, this means that employees in logistics should benefit from the fact that machines can now learn quickly and be used flexibly to relieve them of physically demanding work. Employers should take advantage of the fact that highly developed algorithms enable us to ensure that fertilizers are applied in real time in the agricultural sector, because information about the weather and the soil can be evaluated at lightning speed. They should use digitalized solutions in manufacturing, where 3D processes and virtual visualizations, for example, can help us with custom-made products. Employees should take advantage of the new opportunities in education, where digital learning platforms can provide support. Corona still demonstrates this par excellence. And we must not forget that digital solutions can also give us the opportunity to connect remote regions, implement custom-made products, uncover optimization potential – in short, we can make real economic progress through digitization.

To come back to the labor market: We don’t have to completely eliminate existing job profiles, but adapt them to the new requirements – and train employees differently in the future. Because where technology takes work off our hands, it also creates new work. Through installation, optimization and maintenance work. Through the operation and adjustment of machines and through skilled assistance. That has to be learned. Above all, however, it requires an open mindset and a certain flexibility.

After all, digitalization is by no means the only and not the last challenge that is and will be driving society in general and the labour market in particular. A much more explosive issue is climate change and the associated energy transition, for example. The keyword of the hour is therefore agility. We should make use of this – personally, in the company and in society. And that is probably a much greater challenge than digitizing old job profiles.

Incidentally, I had already dealt with the topic of agility in the blog posts on work culture 2.0 and soccer, snacks and sabbaticals.